I'm good ...

I'm forty-six years old today and I ain't doing half bad. Shit, never thought I'd live so long. Something to be said for finding the right one and settling down. Something to be said about getting one's act together.

I'm usually not one for covers of old classic songs, but Rory Block has made a career out of resurrecting old blues tunes. Here she does one of Robert Johnson's best:

Rory Block - Crossroads Blues

Happy Birthday to me!

Why do guys ...

Like Glenn Beck and David Brooks have jobs? There are a lot of good, hard-working folks losing theirs and these idiots keep getting paid nice money to spew their drivel. Digby on Brooks' masturbatory ode to Palin:

... It always amuses me when Washington insiders like Brooks wildly applaud people who hate them.

...

Friday Crazy Limey Redneck Music Blogging

Legendary country singer Keith Richards does one of Gram Parsons' signature tunes.

Hickory Wind

Legacy

I am so fucking bored with and sick of the news today that I thought I'd bring you something a little different.

The last few days, we've posted several times about the pirates holding for ransom a Ukrainian ship full of battle tanks off the Somalian coast, kinda with an eye toward "The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!". Impish brats that we are, our reaction is kinda "Whee! This is gonna be something to watch!".

I did a little lookin' around and discovered that the U.S. Navy ship that is closest to the highjacked ship is USS Howard DDG 83 (Turn yer sound waay up and hit the link. Heh.). You can read all about it at her site, but what got me was that she's named after Staff Sergeant Jimmie C. Howard USMC who received the Medal Of Honor for his actions in Vietnam at the famous (to Marines) 'Battle for Howard's Hill'.

Interestingly, I read the above-linked account many years ago in "Small Unit Action In Vietnam Summer 1966" written by Captain Francis J. West, Jr., USMCR who evolved into Bing West who is IMNSHO the best author extant at describing actions on the ground in Iraq today. But I digress.

Here's SSgt Howard's Medal citation:

"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his own life above and beyond the call of duty. G/Sgt. Howard and his 18-man platoon were occupying an observation post deep within enemy-controlled territory. Shortly after midnight a Viet Cong force of estimated battalion size approached the Marines' position and launched a vicious attack with small arms, automatic weapons, and mortar fire. Reacting swiftly and fearlessly in the face of the overwhelming odds, G/Sgt. Howard skillfully organized his small but determined force into a tight perimeter defense and calmly moved from position to position to direct his men's fire. Throughout the night, during assault after assault, his courageous example and firm leadership inspired and motivated his men to withstand the unrelenting fury of the hostile fire in the seemingly hopeless situation. He constantly shouted encouragement to his men and exhibited imagination and resourcefulness in directing their return fire. When fragments of an exploding enemy grenade wounded him severely and prevented him from moving his legs, he distributed his ammunition to the remaining members of his platoon and proceeded to maintain radio communications and direct air strikes on the enemy with uncanny accuracy. At dawn, despite the fact that 5 men were killed and all but 1 wounded, his beleaguered platoon was still in command of its position. When evacuation helicopters approached his position, G/Sgt. Howard warned them away and called for additional air strikes and directed devastating small-arms fire and air strikes against enemy automatic weapons positions in order to make the landing zone as secure as possible. Through his extraordinary courage and resolute fighting spirit, G/Sgt. Howard was largely responsible for preventing the loss of his entire platoon. His valiant leadership and courageous fighting spirit served to inspire the men of his platoon to heroic endeavor in the face of overwhelming odds, and reflect the highest credit upon G/Sgt. Howard, the Marine Corps, and the U.S. Naval Service."

Basically, Howard and his men, 18 Marines against maybe 400 NVA, fought throughout a very long night with everything they had and ended up in a circle with their feet touching, while they threw rocks at the enemy and waited for dawn and help to arrive.

You sailors in Howard have a hell of a namesake. SSgt. Howard is guarding the streets of Heaven. Make him proud.

Looking out ...

For his brothers and sisters ... not so much. Montag:

...

# Veterans Groups Give McCain Failing Grades. In its most recent legislative ratings, the non-partisan Disabled American Veterans gave Sen. McCain a 20 percent rating for his voting record on veterans' issues. Similarly, the non-partisan Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America gave McCain a "D" grade for his poor voting record on veterans' issues, including McCain's votes against additional body armor for troops in combat and additional funding for PTSD and TBI screening and treatment.

# McCain Voted Against Increased Funding for Veterans' Health Care. Although McCain told voters at a campaign rally that improving veterans' health care was his top domestic priority, he voted against increasing funding for veterans' health care in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. (Greenville News, 12/12/2007; S.Amdt. 2745 to S.C.R. 95, Vote 40, 3/10/04; Senate S.C.R. 18, Vote 55, 3/16/05; S.Amdt. 3007 to S.C.R. 83, Vote 41, 3/14/06; H.R. 1591, Vote 126, 3/29/07)

# McCain Voted At Least 28 Times Against Veterans' Benefits, Including Healthcare. Since arriving in the U.S. Senate in 1987, McCain has voted at least 28 times against ensuring important benefits for America's veterans, including providing adequate healthcare. (2006 Senate Vote #7, 41, 63, 67, 98, 222; 2005 Senate Votes #55, 89, 90, 251, 343; 2004 Senate Votes #40, 48, 145; 2003 Senate Votes #74, 81, 83; 1999 Senate Vote #328; 1998 Senate Vote #175; 1997 Senate Vote #168; 1996 Senate Votes #115, 275; 1995 Senate Votes #76, 226, 466; 1994 Senate Vote #306; 1992 Senate Vote #194; 1991 Senate Vote #259)

...

More 'support' at the link.

The same question ...

I was asking this afternoon:

Why is this crazy person named Glenn Beck on my teevee?

Pirate fizzle-out. Maybe...

Can't wait for the Russians to get there! - d

Yeah, me too pal, but it looks like we may not get our fireworks show, dammit!

CNN/World

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- The Somali government has asked Russia to intervene against pirates who have seized a Ukrainian cargo ship, the Somali ambassador to Russia said Wednesday.

But the Russian navy issued a statement later in the day saying it had no intention of using force against the pirates, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.

"The questions of freeing the ships and crew are being dealt with in line with the corresponding international practices," Interfax quoted Navy spokesman Igor Dygalo as saying. "For understandable reasons, the use of force would be an extreme measure because it could threaten the life of the international crew of the ship."

Aw, geez, what a time for the Russkies to go all warm an' fuzzy on us! What could possibly have been their motivation?


Stratfor

To sum up: the Russians announced that they were sending a warship to patrol off of Somalia’s coast, and dispatched it just two days before a Ukrainian ship loaded with Soviet-era weapons was seized by pirates. A week after the hijacking, the Somalian government announced recognition of South Ossetian and Abkhazian independence, and announced that they were in talks with the Russians for military training and assistance. (Somalia was allied with the Soviets during the Cold War, but relations fell apart after pro-Soviet President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991.)

Setting aside the coincidence that Russia announced the deployment of an anti-piracy warship three days before the hijacking of the Ukrainian ship, the strategic issue is that the Russians are involving themselves once again in the Horn of Africa. They had been involved there during the Cold War, and they are returning — on a very small scale for now. The Horn of Africa is critical to U.S. counterterrorism efforts; the region is watched through Africa Command, headquartered in Germany, and Djibouti hosts the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.

This follows the pattern Russia established with Venezuela: recruiting allies whose interests diverge from those of the United States. The primary function at this point is to irritate Washington, since the primary deployment is naval — and so minimal that it presents no threat to U.S. naval sea-lane control. At the same time, the Somalian announcement that the Russians are welcomed ashore in Somalia opens the possibility of a Russian land base in the region, and the possibility of Russian troops helping to assert government control over Somalian chaos — or at least trying to.

The fate of the hijacked ship is unknown. Kenya’s decision to buy T-72s from Ukraine is not unheard of. The timing of the announcement and the hijacking is entirely coincidental. We understand all of that of course. But in this bizarre affair what is clear is that the Russians are moving ahead rapidly to at least show the flag in diverse parts of the world, and are finding willing partners — maybe not of the first quality, but enough to distract the United States at least somewhat from more focused and pressing issues elsewhere.

I guess the best we can hope for is that there's a camera pointed at MV Faina when 30 or 40 previously unannounced limpet mines go off on her hull in a spectacular coincidence about two hours after the Russians show up.

Drat all this! I already bought the popcorn...

Cut, Kill, Dig, Drill

Excellent and quite long article on McBimbo in the ever-so-elitist London Review Of Books:

[...] In 1996, Pat Buchanan (‘The peasants are coming with pitchforks’) appealed to the same bloc of voters with a programme that was militantly Christian, white, nativist, provincial, protectionist and anti-Washington. In 2000, Karl Rove cleverly enrolled this quasi-Poujadist faction in his grand alliance of libertarians, born-agains and corporate interests. It’s worth remembering that in 2004 every American city with a population of more than 500,000 voted for Kerry, and that the election was won for Bush in the outer suburbs, exurbia and the countryside – peasants with pitchforks territory. For an organisation so wedded to its big-city corporate clients, the Republican Party has been hugely successful in mopping up the votes of low-income, lightly educated rural and exurban residents.

What is most striking about her is that she seems perfectly untroubled by either curiosity or the usual processes of thought. When answering questions, both Obama and Joe Biden have an unfortunate tendency to think on their feet and thereby tie themselves in knots: Palin never thinks. Instead, she relies on a limited stock of facts, bright generalities and pokerwork maxims, all as familiar and well-worn as old pennies. Given any question, she reaches into her bag for the readymade sentence that sounds most nearly proximate to an answer, and, rather than speaking it, recites it, in the upsy-downsy voice of a middle-schooler pronouncing the letters of a word in a spelling bee. She then fixes her lips in a terminal smile. In the televised game shows that pass for political debates in the US, it’s a winning technique: told that she has 15 seconds in which to answer, Palin invariably beats the clock, and her concision and fluency more than compensate for her unrelenting triteness.

Wasilla is what inevitably happens when there are no codes, no civic oversight, no planning, when the only governing principle in a community is a naive and superstitious trust in the benevolent authority of the free market. Palin’s view of aesthetics was nicely highlighted in 1996, a few months before she ran for mayor, when a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News happened to light on her in an excited crowd of five hundred women queuing up in the Anchorage J.C. Penney’s, waiting to snag the autograph of Ivana Trump, who was in town to hawk her eponymous line of scent.

‘We want to see Ivana,’ Palin said, who admittedly smells like a salmon for a large part of the summer, ‘because we are so desperate in Alaska for any semblance of glamour and culture.’

The blot on the Alaskan landscape that is Wasilla is the natural consequence of a mindset that mistakes Ivana Trump for culture.

By implication, then, big city people are unpatriotic (Palin’s last phrase was a sneer at Michelle Obama, a lifelong Chicagoan); they are insincere slackers and draft dodgers – in a word, liberals. The passage reminded Republicans of their party demographics, their strength in the exurbs, and prepared the ground for an assault on the metropolitan manners and mores of their Democratic opponents, in a depressingly effective piece of hokum.

The most likely cause of her undoing will – strangely – be the McCain campaign. In St Paul, unveiled as the goose who could lay for the Republicans the golden egg of the presidency, she brimmed with the inflated self-assurance of the small-world conqueror, and held a national audience in the palm of her hand as she recited the same confident platitudes that served her so well in Alaska. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and McCain and his advisers should have left well alone, left ‘Sarah’ to be her vote-winning self. Instead, they seem to be no less alarmed by her than liberals are, and have taken to force-feeding her, stuffing her gullet with ‘talking points’ on foreign and domestic policy. Under their frantic tuition, Palin has recently looked less likely to lay the golden egg than to produce inferior goose-liver pâté.

She may yet regain her poise. Her populist appeal is still enormous, and it’s far too early to start dancing on her grave, as some commentators have already tried to do. Palin’s campaign-trail mistakes will not calm that deep groundswell of public feeling of which she is now the national figurehead. But, for the last few days, as her education at the hands of her captors has proceeded, we in the cities, with our elitist liberal ideas and our stark terror of what further harm the United States might inflict on itself and the world under a third consecutive Republican administration, have been just a little less likely to wake up screaming at three in the morning.

I'm lucky - my bladder usually wakes me up quietly at 3AM.

Enjoy the rest.

What Bush Has Stolen From Us

Susan J. Douglas

I recently visited Australia and New Zealand, and it made me realize that we need mythic language — the kind that comes from oral cultures reliant on handed-down legends — to capture what has happened these past eight years. Like the Aborigines’ dreamtime stories, we need something more powerful than “the failed policies of the Bush administration.” I propose “The Stolen Years.”

It began, of course, with the stolen election in 2000. But just think how much has been stolen from us: our morality and, indeed, our sense of humanity.

These are not just policy failures. This has been a spiritual pillaging of any sense that the United States can ever aspire to, or represent, higher principles; that our nation is, or can be, a democracy, however flawed; that the government cares about citizens other than the really rich.

The Bush administration has seized all we hold dear and ground it into the dirt with its boot heels.

Most important has been the nation’s sense of its own morality. Few of us are deluded that the U.S. government was, before the Bush regime, a beacon of moral rectitude and social justice. The United States has overthrown many governments, mostly in secret, and supported repressive rulers. But when have our leaders publicly and adamantly rejected the Geneva Conventions and endorsed torture as a matter of national policy? It’s one thing for there to be a gap between national principles and government practices, and quite another for a president to deride those principles as no longer essential to the nation’s moral compass.

Please read the rest.

Angry Populism Is About To Explode

'Bout fuckin' time. Robert Reich with a 'must read':

An important distinction here. While more Americans are coming around to "supporting" the bailout bill, the vast majority still hate the idea of bailing out Wall Street. They're for the bailout bill now only because they fear that a failure to pass it will have worse consequences -- drying up credit at a time when Main Street is struggling. But make no mistake: America is mad as hell. They resent what they perceive as extortion by the Masters of the Universe.

But whatever it's called and however it's financed, it's still an outrage. America's foreign policy is made no more flexible by going into deeper hock to the Chinese and the Middle East. And the deal still subjects American taxpayers to some risk, especially if the housing market doesn't bounce back for many years. Worse, the bill can't help but prop up the earnings many Wall Street executives whose malfeasance, greed, and stupidity got us into this mess in the first place. And it does nothing for average Americans except avoid economic calamity. (The provision ostensibly helping distressed homeowners is to be used at the discretion of the Treasury Department, so it's mostly a sham.)

The larger economic outlook is not encouraging. All signs point to the economy worsening, bailout or no bailout. Unemployment will continue to rise. Median earnings will continue to drop, adjusted for inflation. More Americans will lose their health insurance.

The Era of Angry Populism has only just begun. Let's hope Obama wins, and is able to mobilize the anger into fierce pressure on Congress to get his agenda enacted, as well as reform Wall Street and Washington.

If he wants to. Let's hope so.

Shit, I coulda told 'em that...

LONDON (AFP) - Cannabis is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco, according to a report by a research charity Thursday, which called for a "serious rethink" of drug policy.

The Beckley Foundation, a charity which numbers senior experts and other academics among its advisors, said banning cannabis has no impact on supply and turns users into criminals.

"Many of the harms associated with cannabis use are the result of prohibition itself, particularly the social harms arising from arrest and imprisonment," it said.

Nothing new. Studies have shown this for years. I'm glad it's comin' around again, but it's kinda like inventing the wheel over and over again.

On the other hand, the truth has no relationship to, or effect on, the desire of governments to oppress their people for smoking untaxed plants for fun without regard to either Puritan sentiment or corporate commerce.

Fire or Knife?

Paul Krugman

On Olbermann a few minutes ago (that basement classroom with the heavy paper over the windows and camera sure has come in handy lately!) a phrase popped out of my mouth: “Stockholm Syndrome”, with regard to the bailout rescue.

Here’s the thing: it’s very hard for Congress to originate complex financial rescues, so it’s normally up to the executive to put things together. Unfortunately, Paulson came up with an awful plan. Ideally, the Dems would have ripped the thing up and started over, but that was never realistic. So instead they made it significantly better, but still building on the original, misconceived structure; it became better than nothing, but not good.

And then it failed in the House, so the Senate has larded it up, with stuff like SEC. 503. EXEMPTION FROM EXCISE TAX FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROWS DESIGNED FOR USE BY CHILDREN.

I think that Congressional leaders know that it’s a bad bill, but feel compelled to defend it, because they’re (rightly) scared of the financial consequences of a second rejection. And to some extent economists like myself are in the same position; I think I called it the “hold your nose caucus.”

So am I for the bill? Yuk, phooey, I guess so. And I’m very angry at Paulson for putting us in this position.

Reminds me of a show I watched last night about an outlaw motorcycle gang. They had thrown a guy out and he hadn't done the right thing and blacked out the full-size tattoo of the club patch on his back. They gave him the choice of 'fire or knife?'. He chose fire and they burned it off him with a cutting torch.

At least he got a choice before the pain was inflicted, unlike us.

Also from PK, in a lighter vein:

On a lighter note, great story in the WSJ about how canned mackerel has emerged as the medium of exchange in America’s prisons. Sure to be a case study in the next edition of every single principles of economics textbook.

Mackereleconomics. Smells fishy to me...

What's your poison, citizen?

Mark Morford

How can you know? How do you possibly choose? How to decide which is your favorite cruelly disheartening tidbit of news to slide down the national gullet like a rancid oyster this past week?

Is it the wretched and touching fact that no one, not Repubs, not Dems, not animals or bacteria or flowers or rocks or the very air itself, no extant entity anywhere trusts George W. Bush as far as they can hurl him back to Crawford, Texas, in a quivering lump of historic failure? Is it his utter powerlessness and uselessness and ineptitude in the face of the biggest and most volatile fiscal crisis in 20 years? Might be, might be.

But wait, that's not all. Perhaps your attention is split between Bush and the crisis in D.C. and other delightful tidbits, such as John McCain's heroic "suspension" of his campaign so he could be parachute in to Washington like GI Joe's crotchety grandpa and unify his sour party and wrangle the crisis to the ground like it was an uppity "gook"?

Which do you prefer, that his silly suspension stunt was no suspension at all (his campaign kept right on going), or that his thuggish fiscal meddling only made matters worse and quite possibly fractured the vote even further, which makes it all disgustingly obvious that he's clearly willing to sabotage the country's health and stability if it will get him into the Oval Office?

Hmm. What might that be? What else could possibly be happening right now in the bleak corridors of power that's more freakishly entertaining than Congress in a fistfight or Wall Street going up in flames? Is there maybe some sort of soap opera-ish circus sideshow featuring guns and skinned moose and shiny lipstick and speaking in tongues and rumors of witches in the belfry?

Ah, yes. Sarah "Don't Ask Me Anything" Palin. What a sheer joy it's been to watch this bubbly train-wreck of a grand mistake shimmy her way into history, no? Screw the doom 'n' gloom of Bush and the end of Wall Street. At least this nutball creationist knows how to get her freak on, am I right?

It's now obvious that the McCain campaign is so desperately embarrassed by Palin and her shocking ignorance of all things complex and political and worldly, they are simply terrified of letting her speak to any media anywhere. She is being shielded like the deformed stepdaughter, like the cute puppy they bought on the cheap at the mall only to get it home and realize it's got incurable parasites and a wonky eye and pees in its sleep and will require very expensive surgery if it ever wants to digest actual food.

So, which will it be? The strangely satisfying feeling of unity brought on by universal disdain for our failed president? McCain behaving like a nearsighted Rambo stabbing the nation in the foot, accidentally on purpose? The disquieting sense that your bank and your investments are about as stable as Lindsay Lohan at Oktoberfest? Or is it Palin's girly show o' patronizing silliness, full of witches and gobbledygook responses and tales of cavemen riding the backs of dinosaurs?

I know, it's tough to choose a favorite, particularly when all appears to be one big, repellent joke. On us.

Yeah, funny. Har-dee-fuckin'-har.

Surprise ...

Gord linked us to Kathleen Parker's surprise at how the wingnuts turned on her yesterday. Today, Athenae asks her some questions:

...

These are the people who laughed at Katrina victims, who mocked them as they drowned, and who said to people standing on rooftops in rags in the days after, tough rocks, your own fault, and by the way fuck you, for still being alive to shame me.

They said they'd shoot them, if they could.

What did you think they would do to you?

These are the people who called a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer a murderer.

These are the people who laughed at the idea of Timothy McVeigh making a detour to the New York Times Building.

These are the people who called Jill Carroll a traitor. After she was kidnapped. Held captive. Tormented.

These are the people who said Pat Tillman's family should shut up and go away. That Cindy Sheehan was a whore. That Valerie Plame was a criminal. That Richard Clarke was a monster.

These are the people.

...

Did you think it would be different for you? You did, didn't you. You poor, deluded thing. You thought your time in Wingnuttia would buy you out of jail. Would buy you the right to say something contrary. Would give you the benefit of the doubt. Some wiggle room, with them. You thought you were immune; when they threatened journalists and laughed at the death of "the dinosaur media" and fantasized about killing the people who disagreed with them, they didn't mean you. Surely not you. They meant other people.

...

Welcome to our world, Ms. Parker.

And you can't even see Russia ...

From Sarah Palin's house:

Just when you thought the whole "I can see Russia from Alaska" thing couldn't get any funnier...CNN's Gary Tuchman delivers the goods: it turns out that Sarah Palin has never seen Russia from Alaska.

Tuchman went up to the part of Alaska from which you can actually see Russia, a remote island called Little Diomede located just 2.4 miles from it's Russian twin, Big Diomede.

...

No Alaskan governor has ever visited Little Diomede, though indicted U.S. Senator Ted Stevens has made the trip. The town's residents barely knew who Palin was, and one of them didn't know she was the VP nominee. [my em]

...

Lucky bastids.

...

It's going to be fun watching McCain-land spin this one, and it's going to be even more fun watching Tina Fey parody it.

Can't wait. Now, I could deal with Tina Fey as a VP candidate ...

Great thanks to Oliver Willis for the link.

Crime doesn't pay ...

One set of pirates are gonna get their ass handed to 'em by the Russkies. Another bunch seem to have hijacked the wrong cargo:

A tense standoff has developed in waters off Somalia over an Iranian merchant ship laden with a mysterious cargo that was hijacked by pirates.

...

Andrew Mwangura, the director of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, told the Sunday Times: “We don’t know exactly how many, but the information that I am getting is that some of them had died. There is something very wrong about that ship.”

The vessel’s declared cargo consists of “minerals” and “industrial products”. But officials involved in negotiations over the ship are convinced that it was sailing for Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia’s Islamist rebels.

...

Oh, bad luck, fellas. I wonder what's worse; dying horribly, painfully, from some weaponized chemical or gettin' blowed out the water by a buncha Russian conscripts who need the target practice? Shoulda opted for a career in fishing.

See yas in Hell.

Quote of the Day III

POP:

Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a time when you trusted the government enough that you didn’t dread hearing the news in the morning, for fear that something else had gone to hell?

Indeed, sister.

Piracy Update

Following up on my earlier post:

Telegraph(UK)

The Somali government has invited foreign powers to attack the pirates holding a Ukrainian cargo ship loaded with tanks hostage in its waters.

A Russian navy warship armed with marines and special forces commandos has already left for the Gulf of Aden, where a US guided-missile destroyer with air support is just a few miles from the captured MV Faina.

"The international community has permission to fight with the pirates," said Mohamed Jama Ali, the foreign ministry's acting permanent director. "Permission to use force was given."

Hmmmm. Russian ship...marines and special forces commandos...permission to use force.

Arrgh, mateys! If those fuckin' outboards still run, you better use 'em or you're shark shit. You'll have so much Russian lead in you your bros might dredge up what's left and sell you to a battery factory.

Also from the Telegraph:

The pirates are reported to have turned on each other and fought a gunbattle, killing three of their comrades, as helicopters from a flotilla of ships deployed by the US Fifth Fleet buzzed the Ukrainian ship, the MV Faina. The dispute was believed to be about what to do with their haul.

A US defence official in Washington corroborated the reported shooting, but the pirates denied there had been any such incident and said they were happily celebrating Eid, the Islamic festival which marks the end of Ramadan. Their spokesman did not say whether the crew had been invited to the feast.

Heh. That last sentence was some great tongue-in-cheek humor in the finest tradition of British drollery..

I guess it's customary to empty your Kalashnikov into yer bros to celebrate religious holidays. Whadja do fer Rosh Hoshanah?

Bailout narratives

Paul Krugman is working overtime lately. Thank you, Paul.

There seem to be two prevailing narratives about the bailout plan(s). Both have elements of truth, but are fundamentally wrong.

One narrative is that of the Wise Men and the Destructive Yahoos. According to this narrative, men who Understand What Needs to be Done put together a plan to save the world, but they did a bad job of communicating, and a mob of ignorant people stands in their way.

The other narrative is that of the Evil Plotters and the Righteous Uprising. According to this narrative, the same people who sold us the Iraq war have tried to bully Congress into adopting a plan that is, in essence, a cynical ripoff — a scheme to transfer vast wealth to the rich and cripple the next administration.

My view, which I think is now shared by many economists, is that Paulson grabbed hold of the wrong end of the stick — he should have been seeking to expand bank capital, taking an ownership share in compensation, rather than trying to push up the value of toxic paper. In the end, that’s what we’ll probably do.

On the other hand, the way that Paulson et al have been blundering around puts the lie, I think, to the idea that this is a cynical ploy. Ideology certainly played a role — it’s probably a lingering distaste for Evil Socialism that made Treasury go for buying toxic waste rather than injecting capital. And if the Bush years have taught us anything, it is that sometimes conspiracy theories are right. But in this case the performance has been more Keystone Kops than Star Chamber.

So now what? Like Jamie Galbraith, I’d rather see Dodd-Frank-Paulson, which is much better than the original plan, pass than not. The true cost to taxpayers will probably be close to zero, and it would buy some time. But I’m not passionate about this. The real financial rescue still lies in the future, probably under the Obama administration.

From your lips to God's ears.

PK Update:

Death by plastic?

Watch:

The First Day of the McCain-Palin Presidency